A: 3.6 x 4.3 x 1.6 cm (1 7/16 x 1 11/16 x 5/8 in.)
B: 3.7 x 4.4 x 1.6 cm (1 7/16 x 1 3/4 x 5/8 in.)
Type:
Jewelry
Geography:
Senegal
Date:
1974
Label Text:
Earrings, particularly twisted gold hoops ubiquitous throughout western Africa since the first millenium AD, are an essential component of any Senegalese jewelry ensemble. Often paired with a matching pendant or necklace, the more ornate patterns reflect their European inspirations, incorporating delicate filigree work and crested with flowers and circlets of twisted wire design. These designs often bore French names, or French derivatives. Dangling versions, sometimes modeled after common necklace designs, are also popular and are known as "long-longs." Others are small hoops composed of coiled or twisted wire meant to be attached permanently to the ear and worn in multiples.
Senegalese women are known for their political activism, and earrings are a popular vehicle for commemorating political events, causes or people, resulting in named and widely circulated designs. Celebrated beauties or pillars of the community were also memorialized, as in these earrings, known as "Pauline Diacks." Popular throughout Senegal, the style acclaimed the famously beautiful and accomplished midwife from Saint-Louis. Other famous beauties were similarly honored - an earring style composed of three semicircles and known as "re Kiné" ("Kiné's smile") represents the smile of a beauty named Kiné N'Diaye.
Yet another style, designed by Mambeye 'Doudou' Gueye around 1951, is named "tonaimar." Dedicated to Abdoulaye Mar Diop, a highly regarded and industrious mayor of Saint-Louis, it encouraged him to "take it easy" and not work quite so hard.
Another event memorialized in earring form ("Loi de Lamine") celebrates the Lamine Guèye law (loi Lamine Guèye) of 1945 when women gained the right to vote, due to Lamine Guèye's tireless protests during his tenure as the Sengalese representative to France. French citizenship had been extended to the Senegalese colonies, but originally proposed to exclude women.
Description:
Pair of gold-plated silver alloy clip-on earrings in the shape of a heart. Each is surmounted by a central two-tiered filigree florette surrounded by four other smaller filigree flowers. The metal framework is filled with teardrop shapes and filled with true filigree and undulating filigree. Half circles filled with filigree and crested by metal globules (pep) surround the outside edge of the heart. A is missing one of the smaller filigree flowers, which is loose (C), but can be reattached.
Provenance:
Marian Johnson, purchased (commissioned) in Dakar, Senegal, 1974 to 2012
Exhibition History:
Good As Gold: Fashioning Senegalese Women, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., October 24, 2018-February 2, 2020; North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, September 16, 2020-January 3, 2021
African Mosaic: Selections from the Permanent Collection, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., November 19, 2013–August 12, 2019 (installed June 12, 2015-August 1, 2017)
Published References:
Maples, Amanda, Ashby Johnson, Marian, and Dumouchelle, Kevin D., 2018, Good As Gold, Washington, D.C.: NMAfA, Smithsonian, illustrated p. 72
Johnson, Marian Ashby. 1994. "Gold jewelry of the Wolof and the Tukulor of Senegal." African arts 27 (1), p. 46 (if not exact earrings, then these are a copy).
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